Same. I know I have a couple someplace in a bin. That and another embedded card from the era, but I think it had something like a DIMM footprint. I thought it was also Dallas semi, but I can’t find it or remember what it is though…

I remember thinking that some of the tracking features (temperature) of the button would be helpful in some situations. But the ring was the crazy model. Between these and smart cards, authentication was starting to look futuristic. I even remember getting a smart card reader from my credit card company. They thought it would make for more secure web transactions.

I’ve still seen some iButtons in the wild in odd places. Most recently, I saw them tracking car keys at dealerships. The last car I test drove had a key attached to a fob with an iButton. I was more excited by the iButton tracker than the car.

But I thought of it as an example of how long lasting some design decisions can really be. I’m sure someone designed this system 20-25 years ago and it is still in service today. I’m sure today it would be NFC. But now I’m thinking about what the iButton of 2050 will look like.